Review by Gary Tooze

 

Production:

Theatrical: Paramount

Video: Olive Films

 

Disc:

Region: 'A' (as verified by the Oppo Blu-ray player)

Runtime: 1:16:40.596

Disc Size: 19,035,605,102 bytes

Feature Size: 18,892,695,552 bytes

Video Bitrate: 29.60 Mbps

Chapters: 8

Case: Standard Blu-ray case

Release date: March 31st, 2015

 

Video:

Aspect ratio: 2.35:1

Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps

Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

Audio:

DTS-HD Master Audio English 1560 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1560 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)

 

Subtitles:

• None

 

Extras:

• None

 

Bitrate:

 

 

Description: In this western, the town sheriff must look into a scandal involving his friend who is reportedly having an affair with a Native American girl while his wife is on a trip. The friend is enraged at the accusations and kills the town attorney. He is then lynched by the angry town folk. The sheriff is perplexed by the brouhaha and begins investigating. Soon he discovers that the whole mess of rumors were started by a saloon owner and a wicked gunman who were conspiring to steel the dead man's valuable land. The sheriff then engages in a showdown with the two villains.

 

 

The Film:

A cattle rustler clad in black leather (Lee Van Cleef, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) intends to run a stolen herd to Hell’s Canyon. But first he must pass through Rock River, a town plagued by prejudice and corruption, but presided over by the tough but fair Sheriff Brandon (Forrest Tucker, TV’s F Troop). When a man (Jim Davis) is lynched so that his ranch can be taken, Brandon faces down not only the cattle thief but his own townspeople, in a tireless effort to uphold the law. In the tradition of High Noon, The Quiet Gun is a tightly woven Western that exposes the hypocrisy of the morally pious, and valorizes those individuals who dare to stand up against injustice.

 

Forrest Tucker is the Sheriff of Rock River, a small town full of moral-minded busybodys who are outraged that Tucker’s longtime friend, rancher Jim Davis, has underage half-Indian girl Mara Corday living on his ranch after separating from his wife. Tucker’s friendship with Davis is complicated and somewhat strained, as Tuck is also close to Davis’ estranged wife Kathleen Crowley and rumored to be in love with her himself. With the flames being fanned by numerous townspeople, Davis is eventually forced to shoot an attorney in self-defense.

Excerpt from HornSectionlocated HERE

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

The Quiet Gun gets a modest Blu-ray transfer from Olive Films. This is only single-layered but contrast looks decent with only a few hints at artifacts in the 1 1/4 hour film. I think the appearance improved a shade as the film progressed. It looks a notch or two above SD, but nothing outstanding for the format . The outdoor sequences dominate and look quite bright and crisp with textured grain supported. There is minor depth and only a very few speckles - looking like a clean, undamaged source. The Blu-ray provides a decent, but unremarkable, 1080P presentation.

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio :

Audio is in the form of a DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel mono track at 1560 kbps. Aside from the gun shots it is fairly unremarkable with the film not exporting much depth. We get an original score by Paul Dunlap (Shock Corridor, Shack Out on 101, Cry Vengeance, Portland Expose, Big House U.S.A., Target Earth, Park Row) which sounds typical for the genre - actually, quite atmospheric at times.  There are no subtitles and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked.

 

 

Extras :

No supplements - not even a trailer which is the bare-bones route that Olive are going with the majority of their releases.

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
I was in a western mood and really liked The Quiet Gun. It seemed very realistic to me - with less flamboyant characterizations, notable conflicts and a simple straightforward plot culminating with the preverbal showdown. The Olive Blu-ray (nice cover) does its job and this is a film I may re-watch - as an initial short B-western double-feature home theatre movie night. 

Gary Tooze

March 25th, 2015